


so that you might see routine for me

by 1248



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Men In Black AU, extremely silly. extremely jossed. written while i was halfway through season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 09:02:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21176840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1248/pseuds/1248
Summary: What was unusual about Martin Blackwood’s unconnected little life is that someone had sat at a computer and typed up all the little details of it, picked the slightly silly romantic-sounding name from a half remembered novel they’d once read and then printed out a birth certificate, a driver’s license and a social security card with the details already filled out.Then this person had handed all these precious records of a man that had just been made up to someone in a black suit. That someone had passed it through a few more sets of hands, and it had eventually made it to the desk of a young man that had the exact same face as that pictured on the driver’s license.Of course, that didn’t mean that he was Martin Blackwood. He wouldn’t be Martin Blackwood for at least a few more hours.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this way written in july, while i was halfway through listening to the magnus archives, so you can imagine how canon compliant it will be. this is back when i thought that TMA's version of london was just populated by a number of bizarre occurrences, and i went and saw the new Men in Black film, and thought 'oh, i bet they would totally want to have a set of eyes in the Magnus Institute'
> 
> i also found the idea of martin as a secret agent extremely funny.

Martin Blackwood was indeed a very lonely individual, to anyone looking in from the outside.

His only living relation was his estranged mother that refused to see him, his only friends were his coworkers, and the only place he could call home was a cheap little flat that even the most generous would be hard-pressed to describe as anything other than ‘very clean’.

It seemed that he’d lived his life the way that most people might live in a hotel room. Politely, keeping things tidy, but with little inclination to ever get truly settled. No efforts made to make the space his own, or to introduce himself to the neighbors. The space he took in the world soon to be summarily wiped clean and offered to the next person in line.

Now, this wasn’t so unusual. Plenty of people live without leaving a mark, and plenty more poor, unremembered souls died without leaving a mark, either.

What was unusual about Martin Blackwood’s unconnected little life is that someone had sat at a computer and typed up all the little details of it, picked the slightly silly romantic-sounding name from a half-remembered novel they’d once read and then printed out a birth certificate, a driver’s license and a social security card with the details already filled out.

Then this person had handed all these precious records of a man that had just been made up to someone in a black suit. That someone had passed it through a few more sets of hands, and it had eventually made it to the desk of a young man that had the exact same face as that pictured on the driver’s license.

Of course, that didn’t mean that he was Martin Blackwood. He wouldn’t be Martin Blackwood for at least a few more hours.

The man in the black suit with the young face sighed at the documents that had been put on his desk. He was called Agent B in his organisation, and it was annoying to him that they had worked the letter into the initials of his cover identity. It meant that someone could decide to call him B as a nickname or something, and then it would just be so confusing to be called by his working name while he was undercover.

It was such a long mission that he would have to be careful about any little slips. He wasn’t exactly going to play secretary for a minister for a fortnight, he had been told that this assignment could go on for years, if there was enough consistent activity to keep an eye on.

(He’d looked through the files, and it looked like there’d been… unusual events occurring in relation to the Magnus Institute for the past few hundred years. He had little hope that it would suddenly dry up the moment he was sent to keep an eye on it all.)

He knew that little mistakes tend to add up over time when a mission ran that long, and more importantly, he knew that he had a problem when it came to… getting attached. The doggedness that made him a decent agent meant that he put his whole heart into his work. Perfectly fine when the work was tracking down dangerous alien technology through the back streets of London but not at all fine when he was meant to play an employee and friend, knowing the whole time that the absolute best case scenario involved him lying to his supposed friends about literally everything, and then erasing their memories and disappearing forever.

Puts a damper on things, to say the least.

It was a shock that he getting assigned to another undercover mission at all, since he’d thought the way the last one went had been a bit of a red flag. He’d successfully infiltrated the advert-writing office, gotten cozy with the staff, and then picked out the writer that had been using some illicit off-planet tech to design advertisements that had a significant reality-warping effect to anyone that looked at them for too long. That had been the easy part.

But when he’d had to neuralyze his ‘coworkers’... well, he’d seen Mae, and remembered how she’d opened up to him about the difficulties she’d been having with her marriage, asked him for his input on communicating with her wife, and thanked him so sincerely. And there was Julian, who he’d had a lovely chat with about how to overcome creative blocks, and how helpful writing was when it came to understanding one’s own emotional struggles.

And… he’d been unable to do it. He’d had to call someone else in to neuralyze them for him, while he stood in the break room and tried not to cry.

He was at first sure that he’d be fired for being compromised, and had done everything but pack up his desk while he waited anxiously for someone to come by and take him to the room where all the ‘retired’ agents were taken.

When that didn’t happen, he waited for a negative performance review, or some kind of referral to counseling. Surely the MIB wasn’t just going to let it slide, right?

But instead, he had just been sent out on another tech-hunting job, and when it went smoothly, he was praised for his work, and sent to wait for his next orders. It seemed like no punishment was forthcoming, and that was almost more worrisome to him than if they’d straight out told him that he was going to suffer disciplinary action.

And then, he got assigned an exceptionally long-term undercover mission.

  
Couldn’t be a coincidence, that much was certain. His current guess was that it was a chance to redeem himself disguised as a show of faith by his superiors. _We’re so confident that you can stay detached, we’ve decided to give you another infiltration job to prove it_, they seemed to be saying.

Well, he resented the indirect, almost passive aggressive nature of the whole thing, but he supposed that it was better than a straight firing or a continuation of the pointed lack of acknowledgment of his near-breakdown. And, while he was worried about the same thing happening again, he at least knew what to look out for.

He just had to avoid having any heart-to-hearts or particularly personal conversations with his colleagues at the Magnus Institute. That should be easy. He had never much liked academic types, anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> elias bastard time. that awkward moment when you are so busy focusing on the tasty tasty trauma of your newest employee that you don't notice the whole secret agent thing

“Come in,” Elias called, finally acknowledging the foreign presence he had whose progress he had followed through his institute, and was now standing uncertainty in front of Elias’ office door. 

There was a small noise of surprise, and the door opened just as it occurred to Elias that he had forgotten to let them knock first. Oh, well. He could get away with that much, couldn’t he?

It was a young man with a solid frame and a round face that stepped into his office. Elias knew that he was here about the position of archival assistant, but this person didn’t seem to match with any of the resumes that he had on his desk, strangely enough.

“G-good morning, I’m here about the job opening…?” 

Elias nodded, and he Knew that this would be the one that submitted the resume under the name of Martin Blackwood. Interesting distinction, that. 

“Martin Blackwood?” he asked, and the young man nodded and met his eyes briefly, and Elias Knew that he didn’t think of himself as Martin Blackwood, but he was definitely the person that the resume referenced. Hm.

“Sit down,” he told the young man that he now knew was called B at his previous place of work. He also knew that the young man considered it to be his real name. 

B sat. Elias glanced over the resume, which covered each of the recommended qualifications he had listed in his advertisement, but scarcely more than that. He then looked a little further into B himself.

He had nothing but the most tangential connection to any of the powers, which was certainly a relief. Something about the guileless look of him had put Elias in mind of the Web, and he had no interest in inviting a spider to spin its silk in his domain. 

Speaking of threads, he saw very little connection between B and the rest of the world, even to the job which had given him the nickname that he was so attached to. Rather pitiful, but Elias supposed that he couldn’t fault him for being exactly the kind of lonely that he looked for in a potential employee. 

Staring further into that isolation, he saw that B was desperate for any kind of human closeness, any meaningful relationship, but this conflicted with a desire for independence and control. He felt intense guilt regarding his desire for intimacy and support, and Elias flicked through a slideshow of one-sided relationships and unreciprocated affections.

He suddenly touched on a memory of B’s mother, looking at him with unmistakable hatred and had to restrain himself from pushing further. He would have time to look more when the interview was concluded, he told himself, as the hunger churned.

All in all, very enlightening and with much potential. The dedication and desperation he had seen would certainly be excellent traits for an archival assistant to possess. Gertrude had needed quite a few sacrificial lambs back when she was just getting started, and Elias would like to make sure his new Archivist was also equipped with a lackey that would gladly go running into the flames if asked.

(From what Elias had gathered, this assistant might not even need to be asked before he burned himself to ashes in honor of yet another person that refused to love him back. Which wouldn’t be too much of a waste, considering the Archivist would be better getting accustomed to such things sooner rather than later.)

Elias looked up from the resume he’d been pretending to read for the last few minutes.

“You’re hired.”

B jolted straight from where he’d been slumped in his chair, looking surprised and faintly incredulous.

“I am?” he asked, sounding doubtful. Elias suddenly Knew that he had lied on the details of his education, as well as his experiences. He’d left some things out, and put in plenty of blatant, unverifiable falsehoods.

How irritating. Unfortunately, in every  _ other _ respect, B fit the bill for the job. The actual archiving ability would have to come later.

“Yes. You fit the requirements, and we’re in desperate need of extra hands in the archive. There’s no need for an interview when your qualifications speak for themselves.”

B nodded, relaxing back into his seat with a tentative smile. Elias didn’t have to Look to know he was privately celebrating getting one over on his new boss.

“When can I start?” he asked, looking eager to get to work. 

How nice. Hopefully his enthusiasm wouldn’t diminish when he eventually realised there would be no leaving Elias’ institute on his own terms, various lies and attachments notwithstanding.

Elias slid the employment contract across the table, placed a pen beside it. The room hummed pleasantly with potential that only Elias could sense. There was a weight to it all, a shift in the air, like an eye swiveling in its socket.

It had been too long since the Beholding had someone new. He’d forgotten how it felt.

“Sign this, and you’ve already begun.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which martin angrily pretends to not mind his asshole boss

Martin K. Blackwood was a capable man. 

All the details on his resume suggested it. He had a master’s degree in parapsychology (whatever that was), he’d had a lot of schooling on the general topic of the occult, and he had gotten very good grades, with sterling recommendations from a number of respected experts on the subject. 

And, moving beyond the cover identity, the man pretending to be him was undeniably competent. He spoke 13 alien languages, six of them fluently. He was a skilled and accurate wielder of firearms that most of his species couldn’t even conceive of. He was very persuasive, and a talented manipulator when he got the chance. Most telling of all, he was an MIB agent.

And yet… this was the second time this week he’d gotten told off by his boss. Who was an actual academic, but was most assuredly not a secret agent.

“Martin, when I ask you to file statements chronologically, that means that I’d like them filed in the  _ order _ that they were  _ recorded _ . Not...what is it that you actually did? Alphabetical?” 

No, Jonathan Sims was not a secret agent, but he definitely would have fit right in with the vicious, exacting people that curated the sparse, tersely-worded records kept by the Men In Black. 

Martin (or so he’d gotten used to thinking of himself as) barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. That kind of thing was not in character for him at all. Martin K. Blackwood was nice, ridiculously soft-hearted. 

“Haha… about that. I was sorting them by decade first? Then I was going to do it by  _ year _ , and then by  _ month _ , and then-”

Jon cut him off with an annoyed little scoff.

“Yes, yes, then  _ day,  _ I understand how time is organised. Though I admit I’m relieved to hear that _ you _ understand it as well.”

Martin somehow kept his nervous smile in place through his growing ire. He was nice. Nice people didn’t mind this kind of thing, definitely. 

“I’m sorry. I could do it again? Doing them one at a time, by the whole date instead.”

“It doesn’t matter if you do them again if you’re not doing it right. ...Perhaps you could find someone to supervise you? I’m fairly sure Tim wasn’t doing anything important.”

The smile was getting a bit painful. Martin was  _ nice _ , he was  _ friendly _ , he was a  _ doormat _ .

“Er, alright, I’ll go see if Tim is free. Anything else I can do? D’you want some tea?”

Jon muttered something under his breath, something that sounded a lot like,  _ get out of my archive. _

Bastard. 

Martin put on his most oblivious face. Playing dumb was an important part of being who he was right now.

“Sorry, what was that?” he asked sweetly.

Jon aimed an extremely insincere smile at him, only distinguishable from a grimace by how unnaturally it sat on his face.

“Nothing. Thank you, you can go now.”

“Okay, thanks,” Martin chirped as he turned on his heel and aimed a death glare at the wall opposite, his face safely out of view. 

He was, in no uncertain terms, not allowed to reveal his status as an undercover agent, he reminded himself. 

He was especially not allowed to do it just to rub the existence of the supernatural in a smug civilian’s face. (Though it should be noted that said smug civilian was as thick as a brick and was probably at no risk of actually understanding most information typically regarded as compromising.)

“Close the door after you.”

A  _ please  _ would be nice, Martin thought, grinding his teeth.

“Of course!”

He started to slam the door, and then caught it before it could bang, easing it closed. Martin probably  _ wouldn’t _ slam that door, odds were. 

As a rule of thumb, Martin never did anything that the man pretending to be him really wanted to do.

“Boss got you down?” 

Almost the instant he was out of Jon’s office, Tim was there, sitting at his desk and shooting him a sympathetic look.

He groaned internally. 

Normally, about now Tim would be out on lunch break with Sasha, since they both made a habit of buying from the local cafe rather than bringing food like Martin or scavenging like Jon. But Sasha was currently out checking a lead on a statement, and so he’d have to entertain Tim instead. 

Martin shrugged and put on a sheepish smile. “I mean… I did make a pretty big mistake. Nothing wrong with letting me know about it.”

Doormats like it when people boss them around, right?

Tim looked politely incredulous as Martin made his way back to his desk and sat in his chair.

“I heard all that, you know. He doesn’t talk to me like that, and you can’t exactly say that it’s good for morale when he gets on your case so often. Why not tell him so?” he said, rising from his seat to trail after Martin.

Martin settled down into his chair and aimed an absent smile at all the files on his desk that would have to be reorganized. 

Timothy Stoker was handsome, charismatic and intelligent. He liked Tim as much as he  _ could _ like him while consciously making an effort not to get attached. As much as he liked anyone working at the institute. 

But he had to admit that he wasn’t particularly endeared by just how nosy Tim could be. It was the kind of doggedness that only showed its face when Martin didn’t particularly want to talk about something.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to get fired because I got in a row with my boss because I didn’t like his tone, of all things,” he offered belatedly when it became evident Tim wanted a response.

“I don’t think he’d  _ fire _ you. Just shout at him a bit, tell him off. He gets all shocked if you give him a taste of his own medicine,” Tim said, smirking a bit and getting nice and settled in his spot on the edge of Martin’s desk.

Martin knew he was speaking from experience because he had heard the entire argument last week. Something about research ethics and the pros and cons of getting relevant information through recording conversations had during a date.

Shouting at Jon was a tempting proposition, but one he absolutely could not accept.

“I mean, I don’t  _ want _ to have a row with Jon at all. He’s fine, and I don’t see the need to rock the boat besides,” he muttered, twisting his hands in the nervous fidget he’d adopted.

Tim peered at him inquisitively for a moment before he leaned back and hummed thoughtfully.

“You know… if I didn’t know any better, I’d think that you cared less about not getting fired and more about just sucking up to Jon.”

Oh, please no. But maybe it would make sense for Martin…? God, he didn’t know. Better try to play it off. This was something he was not particularly eager to have to playact. 

“That’s not really… I mean, I don’t think I’ve been a suck up…” he argued weakly, on the grounds that even Martin Blackwood had  _ some _ pride.

Tim raised his eyebrows in a  _ oh, is that so? _ kind of gesture that he didn’t appreciate one bit.

“Okay, if you say so,” he said, rising from his perch on Martin’s desk onto his feet, and turning back to face him, looking briefly serious.

“But just know that if you do have a thing for him or… whatever it is, I really do think you could do better.”

Martin suppressed a bitter smile. Like relationships were on the table. Like he was interested in Jon Sims, of all the men in the world.

“Duly noted,” he said, trying for sincere and grateful but sounding slightly sardonic to his own ears. Stupid.

Tim nodded at him, either oblivious to or ignoring his tone, and wandered back towards his own desk.

Ugh. If the office gossip had decided Martin had a crush, he should probably play into it, no matter how much he actually disdained the man. It’s not that it was outside of his capabilities to pretend, but it was just that he… really didn’t want to. But such was the nature of his occupation. Sometimes he had to do things that he found unpleasant.

At least, he thought, there was no risk of forming a serious attachment to him.


End file.
